Indian Economy News

Icra launches infrastructure rating to help borrowers get better risk-based pricing

Mumbai: Ratings firm Icra launched a new rating system for the infrastructure sector which aims at better risk-based pricing and more access to long-term lenders.

The new rating system will incorporate the expected loss (EL) of a project entity, which would factor in the probability of default (PD) and the recovery prospects.

The new rating system will focus on the overall recovery of dues by the investor/lender, a metric that can be evaluated subsequently, making this scale amenable to get itself evaluated for its differentiating and predictive capability. Under the new rating scale, final ratings will be assigned on Expected Loss on the scale from [Infra] EL 1 to [Infra] EL 7, where instruments rated ‘EL 1’ would be considered to be having the lowest expected loss and instruments rated ‘EL 7’ the highest.

‘’Adoption of the proposed rating system for the infrastructure sector will enable better risk-based pricing and can also help in opening up long-term funding avenues for the sector ”said Shubham Jain, vice-president, Icra. “This will be significantly useful in case of fundamentally strong projects which face temporary cash flow mismatches during the extended lifecycle of the project.’’

Infrastructure projects have been facing difficulties in getting funds from long-term investors and bond markets on account of higher perceived risks and lower credit ratings. The conventional ratings, based on the concept of ‘single day, single rupee’ delay, tend to be constrained on account of relatively short debt tenure, compared to the overall economic life of the project, unpredictable ramp-up periods, and cash flow volatility, resulting from risks pertaining to counterparties, markets and operations.

Once stabilised, infrastructure projects often have a nearly monopolistic market position, relatively high pricing power and low technological obsolescence risk. Further, Public Private Partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects have additional safeguard features like availability of termination payments, contractual protection, etc. Also, going by the local and global experience, the default or loss risk of projects reduce significantly once they achieve stabilisation phase. In order to adequately incorporate these distinct and unique characteristics, the new credit rating system is developed in consultation with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and associated stakeholders, Icra said in a release.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

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